Thursday, April 11, 2013

A Blanket Warning About Stephan Kinsella

For the record, Kinsella is a very sleazy, dirty fighter. His personal attacks against me don't seem to stop, as bizarre as they might be. I am not going to spend the rest of my career going over every one of his attacks. This is just a blanket warning to all about the sleazy tactics used by this guy. I will provide only two examples to show you what I mean.

There's this:

Stephan Kinsella April 3, 2013 at 1:05 pm

" Wenzel is a shadowy character. Who knows where he came from. Some former Lyndon Larouche type? Who knows."

Notice the question mark after the Lyndon Larouche quip. He knows full well that I have never been affiliated with Lyndon Larouche. He's afraid of a lawsuit and throws in the question mark. Sleazy. No facts, total innuendo. I have been a libertarian since the early 1970s when Harry Browne's first book came out. I said so in an interview back in February.

There is a Robert Wenzel that did contribute to the Lyndon Larouche Political Action Committee in 2007. He lives in Spring Lake, New Jersey. I have never lived in Spring Lake, NJ and I don't think I have ever even passed through it. It appears this Robert Wenzel was 85 years old, when he made the contributions. I am not quite 85 years old, even now, 6 years later.

It's a total Kinsella smear. As was this slimy move by him during the debate, in the same cute way, discussing me and Scientology, where it's not really clear whether he has facts. Total smear.

For the record, I will pay anyone $250,000 if they can link me with Scientology. Good luck. I have never as much stopped to take one of their sidewalk stress tests. Come to think of it, I will offer $500,000 to anyone who can link me to Lyndon Larouche.

That's all I am going to say about these bizarre Kinsella tactics. I will, however, continue to address the many flaws I see in Kinsella's anti-IP views. If Kinsella continues these bizarre smears, you can all make your own judgments as to what that is all about.

Dr Wenzel, Mr Kinsella's antics have somewhat obscured the fact that your position is basically that of Murray Rothbard, while Mr Kinsella purports to gave refuted him, so far as I can tell with the two following arguments:

-- that information used in human action can be superabundant,

and

-- that persons cannot commit themselves by contract to not act in certain ways.

I am quite sure that Murray Rothbard would have himself refuted this alleged "refutation", to the extent that it rests on those two statements:

-- by definition, that which is not a bad and yet is superabundant has zero value, and nothing which is the object of human action can have zero value: people are indifferent to valueless objects, and such "indifference cannot be demonstrated by action"; here Mr Kinsella's lack of training in economics, and I am sorry to say Professor Hoppe's, migh account for their lack of understanding on this subject, a lack of understanding which is quite common among neo-classical "economists" but quite surprising on the part of alleged "Austrian" economists..

-- contracts whereby persons commit themselves by contract to not act in certain ways do exist and have always existed: that is for instance what people do when they enter a traditional marriage. The fact that the legal framework may provide for sanctions in the case of a breach of contract does not prove that said contract does not exist, but precisely the opposite: for, wouldn't be absurd to provide for sanctions in the case of breach of contract if there couldn't possibly have been any contract in the first place? Besides, such legal provisions would change nothing to the nature of the moral commitment, which is to keep one's word lest one be a scoundrel. Here, we have to wonder whether Mr Kinsella's apparent lack of legal understanding is genuine or whether he is simply arguing in bad faith. I would bet on the latter, for this, like his misrepresentations of Rothbard's position, his abuse and his latest innuendoes, looks like a shyster's tactics; but whom is he trying to fool?

Wenzel, you are threatening their top position with strong arguments. That's why they are coming after you with personal attacks. Continue the debate and keep it on theory. Do not respond to their personal attacks with personal attacks on them. Continue to press the logic, the logic is on your side. The debate about IP, itself, is their weak point, ignore the rest.